Alabaster Mom

Truly, I know it is none of my business. It shouldn't matter to me if you want to put corn, sugar, soda, cauliflower, penises, or - God forbid - coconut in your mouth. But, may I share a minor rant? The recent surge in the popularity of bacon?  Getting on my last nerve. It's everywhere I look, from tee shirts to memes to random jokes on Facebook. I know that divorcing ourselves from having an understanding of where our food comes from is so common as to be a non-issue. It's the American way, really. It's is hard for me to understand why we care so much about dogs and cats but not other creatures. I won't try to depress you with any facts, but Google the term "gestation crate" if you want to learn a little about where your bacon comes from. Factory farming is truly horrifying (by anyone's definition), and I struggle to understand why so many of us actively support it.  Personally, I am not worth that kind of suffering. There is plenty of other stuf...

One of the greatest challenges of parenting is that when you make threats, eventually you have to follow through with at least one of them. I was in that boat on Sunday. We need to leave for church at around 9:45 each Sunday. This is nothing new - we've been going for six years and church has always started at 10:00. I should also add that my daughter knows how to tell time. She was awake by 7:30 a.m. yesterday. So, if you are following along with the math, she had over two hours to get her act together. I gave her a couple several about a hundred thousand warnings that she needed to brush her teeth, comb her hair, and make her bed. I passed her bedroom at around 9:40 and observed that she was lying on her back on the floor, her feet propped up on her bed. She was fiddling with a roll of masking tape. Lately she is on a kick that involves making stuff out of paper and masking tape. She makes these little origami frogs and can churn them out at a rate of 10+ per hour. In any ...

I just finished dressing the little lady for the Daddy-Daughter Dance. I felt like a lady's maid from Downton Abbey. Although, now that I think about it, I don't recall Lady Mary yelling at Anna to "GET THE DOGS OUT OF HERE SO YOU CAN TAKE MY PICTURE! THEY ARE TRYING TO EAT MY CORSAGE!"

For several years now, my daughter has been asking if she and I could have our photo taken together. As in, professionally. I always shake my head and tell her that we'll have pictures taken of her (by herself) to commemorate her birth instead. Every year, I take her to a studio and have that done just before her birthday. I then distribute the photos to her adoring fans far and wide. She is exceptionally photogenic and loves having her photo taken. Last year, she even gave the photographer some suggestions for poses she thought would work well. I, on the other hand, would rather eat glass than to have my photo taken.  And, let's face it - the market for photos of me and my daughter together is pretty small. I can picture my own relatives, scissors in hand, trying to figure out how to crop me out successfully. Don't feel bad for me - I'm used to my lack of popularity by now. A few weeks ago, when I attended the annual meeting for the rescue (an adults-only sort of affai...

My daughter seems to be caught between two worlds. At times she is desperate to be all grown up and at other times she wants to be babied. The other day she told me that she would like to invent a time machine so that she can go back in time and be an infant once more. I told her that I enjoyed her baby days but that I am not all that interested in wiping her butt all over again. Even while waxing poetic about being a newborn, she is simultaneously asking me for a pair of shoes that have a bit of a heel on them.  A few weeks ago, I bought the kid a new pair of dress shoes.  While I was at the shoe store (alone), I spotted a pair of black shoes with a small heel. Small, but slightly higher than I was comfortable with. I put them back and opted for a dressy ballet flat.  In the back of my mind, I knew she would have wanted the ones with heels, but I could not seem to bring myself to buy them.  "She's too young for that," I thought. I bought the shoes (the flat ones...

We just got back from our weekend out of town. The final tally: Visits to the play area: 3 Visits to the pool: 3 All were extended visits, so I think she got her fill. Oh, who am I kidding - we could've taken her a hundred times and it wouldn't have been enough.  The good news is that the kid is old enough to get in the pool without us. I swam with her twice but sat out for one swimming session. I've also signed her up for some more swimming lessons at the Y. The next round of classes starts on February 27th. When she was swimming in the resort pool on Saturday (while I sat nearby, reading a book), at times I could see an expression of frustration on her face. She had managed to befriend every kid in the pool, but was restricted to the 3-feet depth area by her height. There's nothing I can do to make her taller, but at least I can try to help her be a better swimmer by taking her to classes. When we weren't swimming or hanging out at the indoor playground, we...

Well, if you have been saying that, you should stop. Cuz it's not your birthday. It's mine. Neener neener neener! As a kid, I sometimes felt like I got short-changed on a few things in life. I had to deal with having three different auto-immune conditions. My parents (the original set) had a tumultuous marriage and subsequently, a yucky divorce. One bonus I always had, though, was my Valentine birthday. To this day, I still think it's awesome that my birthday is on Valentine's Day. Thanks for the spectacular timing, Mom! So, how am I celebrating today?  Well, first I'm going to work all day.  Then (and please try to contain your jealousy here), I am going to the grocery store. P has to work tonight. Shed not a tear for me, though, because tomorrow the three of us are going to a resort for a couple of days of swimming and sleeping and shopping and tomfoolery. ("Can we go to the pool? Can we go to the play area? Now? How about now?") When the kid and h...

I had a quiet week last week, so no weighty topics to discuss. I think the most exciting thing that happened to me last week was that I picked some scabs off Gretchen's back. Her case of the creeping epizooties remains mostly unsolved.  Last night we attended a really fun event at church. It's an annual service auction fundraiser, an event that might sound boring but there is wine and chocolate involved, which in Claudia-speak translates to "an offer I can't refuse."  One of the church members couldn't be there but wanted to bid on three items in the live auction (we also had a silent auction). He was at a basketball game and wanted to communicate via text. I was volunteered to be his texting buddy. I warned my "texting buddy" that I would be drinking wine while bidding on stuff for him. Fortunately, I was able to get him two of the three items he wanted. The bidding got a little heated on a massage package. As the bidding soared higher, the massage ...

I tried to take a video of my boy Gideon exhibiting his confusion related to doors that are partially open. For example, say I'm in my bedroom, folding laundry. And let's say that the door is partially open. Instead of pushing the door open, he will just stand there on the other side with half his face visible. I always feel like he is saying, "I sure wish we could be together but this hunk of hinged wood is in the way!" It has never occurred to him to push it open. He is around 9 years old so I'm thinking there won't be a bolt of lightning any time soon. Anyway, I tried to videotape that oft-repeated scene, but he wouldn't cooperate. So instead you get a video him him doing a whole lot of nothing. He is not working on his PhD in his spare time, but I do love him so. My boy!

My daughter will be eight in just a few months.  Her birthday is on May 3rd and she always starts talking about the next birthday on May 4th each year, so it's not like there's any chance of her dad and me forgetting about it. I remember doing lots of things for myself at the age of eight. My kid still makes us help her get her tights on. She requires us to carry her from time to time. She still likes to sit on my lap at church. She's very petite, so she's not denting my femurs or anything when she does that. In some ways she seems rather grown up but in others, she's still vaguely helpless. Yesterday I pulled the primary-colored plastic table and chairs out of her room and replaced them with a "big girl" desk. I had been checking Craigslist for a while and finally spotted the perfect desk. It's an IKEA set that includes shelves and a whiteboard.  She was really excited about it. I hope this leads to some sort of renewed motivation to get her homewor...